


Diamonds in the Rough

by Milieu



Category: Changeling: The Lost, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Changelings, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milieu/pseuds/Milieu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three people just trying to make it in a strange world. Bizarre past traumas included, no refunds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamonds in the Rough

Sapphire started a fight. He didn't know who he was really fighting, or  _what_ , for that matter, but ignorance is hardly ever an excuse where the Fae are concerned. All he remembers is running, and chasing, full of that rage, until the world grew dark around him and strange things tore at him from the sky and he realized that he wasn't the one doing the chasing after all.

Silver hid in plain sight. Her Keeper had other ideas, putting her on a pedestal front and center, polishing her skin until it wore away to expose the gleaming precious metals underneath. Day and night, she stood in place as he feverishly created and then tore his works apart in a rage when they rang hollow, waiting for the time when she too would no longer please him.

Jade dove too deep. He had just enough time to glance back towards the surface, to see something brush past him and realize that it was wearing his face, before he was dragged through to the other side in his Keeper's net. There were others like him, left in the deep, dark waters around the Master's isle, to drag down any who tried to enter (or leave) without permission.

\---

Jade made a deal. There was a Witch, a rival of his Keeper's who appeared before the guardians of the isle and offered them a bargain: they could trade her any one thing and she would return them to the place they had come from before. And he thought,  _oh, I know this story._  He doesn't know if any of the others took the deal, but he remembers very clearly how she threw him back up onto the land, voiceless but now able to run back to freedom. _  
_

Sapphire thinks he never stopped running. Until he started flying, that is. He ran in and flew out again on wings of shadow, and only his most twisted nightmares hint at anything that happened in between. But if you ask, he'll just say he can't remember.

Silver knew the day would come. Her Keeper could never hope to match the passion or sincerity of human works, and he knew it, and it enraged him. Eventually, she was also branded one of his failures and in his fury he shattered her pedestal, allowing her to slip away when his ire was drawn elsewhere.

\---

Silver never went home again. Maybe someone, something, was left in her place. Maybe not. She tells herself that she doesn't want to know, doesn't care, and some days she almost believes it. Some nights, though, she dreams of a stranger with her face, taunting and threatening to call her Keeper back, and these are the nights when she wakes screaming. She doesn't know if they're just dreams, or warnings.

Jade murdered an innocent. The half-person who swam up to the surface went home with his family and begged for his life even as his body was crumbling into fish bones and string. His family and friends were horrified by the arrival of this mute doppelganger, and the disappearance of what they believed to be their son so soon after. The police manhunt was eventually called off. A trail gone cold, they said.

Sapphire wanted his life back. And he tried, he really did. But all he found when he looked for a thief was a man trying to protect his home and lover, some disgustingly wholesome thing that saw only some deranged intruder with a frighteningly familiar face (his own). The man he should have been, versus the monster Faerie had made him. For all his rage, he couldn't bring himself to deal the final blow.

\---

Sapphire found Jade and Silver. Quick webbed hands and a permanent frown, both surprisingly gentle when soothing him in the aftermath of night terrors. A subdued smile and metallic skin, an unexpected warmth to temper his burning fury.

Jade found Silver and Sapphire. A listener and a voice, depending on which he needs at the moment. Passion and a defender, when the world is too cold and alien.

Silver found Sapphire and Jade. One spurs her into action, whether through encouragement or her need to intervene. One urges her to investigate deeper, to dig through the world's secrets and listen to the voices that are barely there.

They all found each other, named each other, fought like comrades and friends and siblings and lovers, with and against each other. And there is no greater treasure.


End file.
